


She Belongs Here

by Lexie



Category: Hellboy (movie-verse)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-01-31
Updated: 2009-01-31
Packaged: 2017-10-03 12:51:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexie/pseuds/Lexie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liz leaves the Bureau for the ninth time, and Hellboy decides to do something about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Belongs Here

**New York City - October 2000**

"Psst," hisses the dumpster.

Liz eyes the collection of dark shadows suspiciously, a cigarette poised between two fingers and her arm wrapped around herself. "If you think I'm coming over there," she tells the empty alley sharply, "you're crazy."

A shuffle of boots on damp pavement and Liz's eyes narrow as she takes a preemptive step back -- and then Hellboy steps out from behind the dumpster, large as life. "Hey, kid," he says, rubbing the back of his neck.

"…H.B.," says Liz, slow and cautious, but she's ignoring the way that her breath caught in her throat at the sight of him. She warily glances over her shoulder toward the restaurant back door; takes a step closer. "What are you doing here?"

"I was, y'know." He gestures with his stone hand, awkward and trying for casual. "In the neighborhood."

"Uh huh," she says. She puts her cigarette in her mouth; folds her arms. "You just _happened_ to be in the alley behind Nothing But Noodles. In Queens."

"Yeah," Red says, after a second's hesitation. "Pop said you were workin' here; figured I'd stop by, say hey."

The back door opens; H.B. ducks back into the shadows. "Hey!" shouts the cook from the sliver of light in the doorway. "Genius! You got five minutes left on that break, you hear?"

"I _know_!" Liz snaps back, hands clenched on her forearms, and the door shuts again.

H.B. is scowling when she steps closer to the dumpster. "That guy giving you crap?" he says.

Liz tries not to be moved by the obvious -- if misguided -- concern; she tries not to think of Abe and the professor and the library full of books; the old sense of _purpose_ to her days, and falling asleep on a big red shoulder while watching Charlie Chaplin movies. "No. He's just a jerk." She shoots him a warning look. "I can handle it."

"You sure? 'Cause I could always--" He rotates his wrist, stone grinding, and Liz shakes her head.

"I'm _this_ close to losing this job already, H.B.," she says. "I'm pretty sure the last thing I need is you punching my boss halfway to China."

"If you change your mind…" he says, only half-kidding, and she almost smiles against her will.

"I'll give you a call," she promises, softer, and then H.B. looks down and Liz bites her lip and glances away, because -- she hasn't exactly stayed in touch, while she's been gone. It's not like she's _ever_ made a habit of letters and phone calls when she's left the Bureau, but she has never been gone this long before. She's never managed to hold down a job or keep from royally screwing things up for this long; hasn't gone six months without speaking to Red since she first met him. She has always come back on her own.

She suddenly feels guilty.

"So," says Red, shifting his weight, "while I'm talkin' to you and everything, Pop said to tell you you can still come back anytime you want."

Liz's heart does a painful flip in her chest. "--I thought this was a spur-of-the-moment thing," she says, to cover the fact that she's got no idea what to say. "You know, you were in the neighborhood."

She regrets the offhand remark the second that she sees how hunted he looks after it. "Uh," he says. "Well. I guess Pop kinda figured I was gonna come find you eventually. He misses you, y'know. So does Abe."

"Red…" Liz says, quiet and aching and a little reproachful.

He talks over it. "I'm pretty sure even the newbie wishes you were still at the Bureau; what'shisface, Stone."

"Clay," she corrects, and he waves her off.

"Whatever, point is--" Red looks her right in the eyes, and she couldn't glance away from that earnest, serious face if she tried. "Come back, Liz."

"I can't just _leave_," she says, and when he opens his mouth to protest, she barrels on before he can stop her. "The job's not great, but it pays and they were willing to take me even though I haven't got a resume or any real ID; I've got a crappy apartment to call my own. I'm making a normal _life_ here, H.B."

"Oh, come _on_!" Off her fierce point at the restaurant door, Red lowers his voice. "Slopping noodles in Queens ain't any kinda life, kid."

"Don't call me kid," she snaps; "I'm making friends here, I'm taking pictures, I have a boyfriend; it's a _fine_ life--" From the way that his head comes up sharply when the word "boyfriend" comes out of her mouth, Liz knows immediately that H.B.'s painfully obvious crush on her -- or what_ever_ it is -- is still in full swing. She pushes onward anyway, ruthless. "Just because I'm not staking vampires and exorcising spirits, that doesn't mean my life sucks!"

"…Boyfriend, huh?" he says, and it's painfully obvious that the fight has gone out of him; Liz finds herself swallowing sour guilt once again. "He treatin' you right?"

"He's a nice guy," she says, quieter. "It's been two months and he's still around, so…"

She isn't entirely sure whether or not she imagines Red's flinch at "two months." She doesn't think she does. "Good," he says, defeated. "That's good. He know about--?" He turns his flesh hand up, palm to the sky, and wiggles his fingers; it's vague, but Liz gets it.

"Not yet." She curls her hands in the sides of her sweater. "I've been working up to telling him."

H.B. shoots a sidelong look at her. "You think he's gonna take the news okay?"

She draws herself up, at the doubtful tone; she says stubbornly, "Yeah. I do. I think he's gonna take it just fine."

* * *

  
"Hi," says Liz Sherman in the doorway of the vault, three days later. She's soaking wet with a duffel bag thrown over her shoulder and a heartbreaking (heartbroken) expression on her face. "You think the offer's still open for me to come back?"

Red's eyes widen; he scrambles out of the armchair. "Anybody says it isn't, I'll kick their ass," he says, mouth moving before his brain, and Liz chokes something that may have started life as a laugh but doesn't end as one. "--Hey." He frowns, dodging cats as he steps across the room. "Hey, Liz, it's okay--"

"I screwed it all up again," she says against his chest, and he stares down at her for a second, then slings an arm across her shoulders. "God, I screwed up so bad--"

"You light anybody on fire?" he asks, and she strangles a muffled half-laugh against him.

"No."

"Then you're good," H.B. says, peaceable and practical, and Liz mutters into his shirt, something about him shutting up, and holds on tighter.


End file.
